Summary
Title: Why You Should Give A Damn About Gay Marriage
Author: Davina Kotulski
Publisher: Advocate Books
ISBN: 1555838731
Pro:
• Lots of important facts about the state of marriage in America today
• Ideas and suggestions for activism
Con:
• Nothing much new to people already familiar with the issue
Description:
• Passionate advocacy of legalizing gay marriage
• Detailed explanation of the rights which accompany marriage
• Many personal stories of what happens to gays when they are denied equal marriage rights
Book Review
Even many gays are unfamiliar with just how many rights are denied to them and their partners, and it’s certainly a foreign concept to the vast majority of straight couples. Most of us don’t give even a first thought to these rights until we desperately need them — and then, if we don’t have them, it’s far too late. Some imagine that these rights can be covered by private contracts, but they can’t; and even if contracts could cover so much, government agencies aren’t obligated to uphold the provisions. Many “defense of marriage” laws being passed would forbid governments from upholding such contracts.
The right to marry, then, isn't just a single, isolated right or privilege. That’s why Davina Kotulski entitled her book Why You Should Give a Damn About Gay Marriage. Kotulski is convinced that gay marriage affects everyone, directly or indirectly, and therefore is an issue that everyone should care about — and her book is designed to convince you, or at least make you care more strongly if you were already convinced.
Marriage is a powerful institution not merely in terms of the law, but also in terms of how much the very concept communicates to others. Saying that a person is one’s “husband” or “wife” communicates so much more than saying they are one’s “civil partner” or “domestic relation.” It’s unreasonable to expect someone to refer to their “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” when they’ve been together for 30 years — but that’s just what society is doing to gays.
- “Remember this: Marriage is not just a word. It’s a word embedded in a whole cultural system that we are daily asked to participate in, while being excluded from.”
- “Marriage equality is about people, regardless of sexual orientation, having access to the same rights, responsibilities, protections, and obligations as every other married couple. When LGBT people become able to legally marry, they will be married, not gay-married, and not same-sex-married. They’ll just be simply married.”
Kotulski is raising an important point here: so-called “gay rights” aren’t about special rights or special privileges for gays; instead, they’re about ensuring that gays have the same fundamental rights as everyone else. The focus on talking about “gay rights” obscures this fact and allows others to misrepresent the subject. Gay marriage, correspondingly, is really just about marriage generally and ensuring that it is treated as the fundamental right which the Supreme Court has declared it to be.
Kotulski’s book is not a complex treatise on law, philosophy, or politics: it’s a self-consciously populist book aimed at a general audience. If you are familiar with most of the basic issues, then it’s unlikely that you’ll derive a lot of benefit from this work (although the lists of rights and benefits associated with marriage makes this a handy resource).
If, however, you need a primer on the issue of gay marriage and why it’s important, then this is a good place to start. It’s a quick read with engaging — and passionate — prose.
Part of that passion comes from Kotulski’s familiarity with the many horror stories gay couples have had to endure — or at least could endure — merely because they are not permitted to marry. With every legal issue gays face, Kotulski explains some of the scenarios that could or do occur. She also makes it clear that none of the marriage-lite options like “civil unions” and “domestic partnerships” suffice to overcome these problems.
People are scared about the possibility of gay marriage, and that includes people who are otherwise generally sympathetic to gays’ civil rights. The expansion of basic liberties to any traditionally despised group is accompanied by fear — the same was true of expanding the right to vote to women, for example. It’s a fear that people are going to have to overcome, however, because gay Americans shouldn’t be treated as second-class citizens.
